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EA launches two games on Ubuntu Linux

Lord of Ultima running in Chromium on Linux Mint

According to an announcement by Ubuntu community manager and Canonical employee Jono Bacon, Electronic Arts has launched two games in the Ubuntu Software Center. The two titles, Command & Conquer Tiberium Alliances and Lord of Ultima, are browser-based web games that are also freely accessible on the internet. Both games are compatible with Firefox 4.0 or later, Internet Explorer 9 or later, and Google Chrome.

Bacon said that "while some may focus on the fact that these are loading web apps, the really exciting opportunity here is that EA have identified Ubuntu as an exciting channel to deliver their content". Electronic Arts is one of the three biggest video game publishers in the industry and its move to start distributing games for Linux, even if those games are not native to the platform, is a significant signal. The news from Ubuntu comes amid rumours and reports that game developer Valve is also working to port its Steam game distribution platform to Linux.

It is not clear yet if EA plans to launch more games on Ubuntu and whether it has plans to include commercial and native games in the future. In the past, games publishers have cited the difficulty of porting existing DRM solutions as a problem preventing them from shipping Linux versions of their games. Canonical so far has not said if it plans to address this issue.